Businessman hires homeless people to wait in line for iPhones

Fights broke out and two people were cited Friday morning outside an Apple store in Southern California, where nearly 100 people had been hired to stand in line for a businessman who planned to resell the new iPhone models.

Dozens of homeless people had waited overnight and planned to obtain the prized Apple devices for a businessman who had hired them for $20 per iPhone, a man who gave his name as Bobby and said he worked for the buyer told Los Angeles TV station KTLA.

Those in line had been given tickets by the store that could be used to purchase iPhones after doors to the Pasadena store opened.

But shortly after 7:30 a.m., two men were taken into custody after a fistfight broke out among the 200 people standing in line at that time.

Later, many of the homeless people standing in line were told they could not buy iPhones and got angry after not receiving their payment, according to KTLA.

The businessman who hired them left the store with about a dozen iPhones, sparking another altercation among those who had been hired to wait in line for him, witnesses said.

"I'm homeless. There's about 50 of us who are homeless here, camped out here all night. There's my mat over there on the wall," one of the homeless men told the businessman, who was later taken away in a squad car.

The man said he felt like a "pigeon pooped" on his head after not getting paid, according to KTLA.